South Sydney's 20-year battle with rugby league disappointment
By Christopher Sutton
foxsports.com.au
August 04,
2010 What if the difference between losing and winning was more than training hard and playing smart? What if there were other forces at play, too difficult to overcome? What if one catastrophic event created an inescapable cycle of failure?
For South Sydney, that event took place 20 years ago when the club became embroiled in rugby league’s first major drugs scandal, an event that coincided with their infamous slide from minor premiers in 1989 to wooden spooners 12 months later.
The club had already lost 10 of their opening 12 matches by the time the Australian Sports Drug Agency stormed a Rabbitohs training session on June 18, 1990, to conduct tests on 36 players.
But that afternoon marked the moment an out-of-sorts club plunged into dark decline.
The Rabbitohs would not win another game in 1990; and by the end of June, it was revealed that 10 players had tested positive to drugs.
What followed was a full-scale implosion, as those inside the club searched for people to blame; the sacking of implicated fullback Scott Wilson led to legal action against South Sydney.
All downhill ... Souths fell hard. Anthony Weate
By season’s end, Souths were propping up the table with a measly four competition points as iconic players Mario Fenech, Les Davidson and Phil Blake led an exodus from a club now in financial ruin.
The Rabbitohs never recovered; 10 years later they were dumped from the NRL.
Two decades on, and the landscape has changed. The Rabbitohs have been overhauled since readmission to the competition, cosmetically at least, thanks to the arrival of owner Russell Crowe.
Still, the class of 2010, a team full of representative players, and with an envious blend of youth and experience, is on the verge of disappointing once more.
Touted as likely top-four finishers only a matter of weeks ago, the Rabbitohs now sit outside the top eight with many pundits predicting they will miss the cut for September football.
The term "losing culture" is thrown about all too easily these days, but it is hard to work around it in the case of South Sydney.
To suggest the freefall that took place in 1990 is responsible for the misfortunes of the club’s current incarnation is going too far; but there is a lot to be said for a team that is fighting 20 years of heartache every time they run onto the field.
The Rabbitohs have finished in the bottom three 14 times in 18 seasons since they won the 1989 minor premiership; only once in that period have they made the finals, knocked out by Manly in the first round in 2007.
That is a fair burden to carry, especially for stars such as Sam Burgess, Issac Luke and Chris Sandow, who are perhaps too green to fully understand the weight of expectation that comes with playing for a team so beset by historical inadequacy.
Five rounds of the minor premiership remain, and there are 10 points up for offer, meaning the Rabbitohs can yet make something of their 2010 season.
So there is still time, if the club has aspirations of adding to its 20 premiership titles - a record that remains the most successful in the history of the rugby league.
